Wednesday, May 25, 2016

I would be lying
if I said that the past couple of months haven’t been a difficult period for
me. It all began with an irony, when, on the day that Commonwealth Magazine (天下雜誌) published its feature story
about me and my journalistic vision for Taiwan, my employer, the Thinking
Taiwan Foundation, informed me that Thinking
Taiwan, the commentary and analysis website I had launched in June 2014,
was to close shop. I was also told that my contract with the Foundation would
be terminated prematurely. All of a sudden the long-term project that I had
spearheaded was no longer long-term; I fought for the site’s survival and
argued for its continuation, but sadly the powers that be had, well, all the
power. As of May 20 — inauguration day — Thinking
Taiwan was no more…

Luckily for me, the
stars were once again aligned in my favor. After a period of grieving (and a
pair of academic events in the U.K. that could not have occurred at a better
time), a new opportunity came my way. This was proof (if proof was needed) that
there is life after 小英, the person
who convinced us to remain in Taiwan days before my spouse and I were set to
leave the country to seek our fortunes elsewhere. With hindsight, it is now
clear that this unexpected development at the Foundation and the severing of my
association with Tsai Ing-wen “brand” was a blessing in disguise: after all,
the principal role of a journalist is to speak the truth to power and to hold
government to account. Tsai, my former employer, has become president. She and
her administration are now fair game.

So here’s what’s happening. Starting on June 1 I will be assuming a new
position as chief editor of The News Lens International,
the English-language sister of The News
Lens, an independent media launched in
2013. And here’s where things get even better. Unlike my situation at Thinking Taiwan, where I handled
everything pretty much on my own, this time around I will finally have a team of
writers and editors to work with. Not only will this allow me to build on the
successes of Thinking Taiwan, it will
also give me a chance to expand the scope of our endeavors by focusing on the
entire Asia Pacific region. With help from our contributors across the region
and all over the world, I intend to turn TNLI
into the platform for the exchange of
ideas within this extremely important and exciting corner of the world, from
Taiwan to Malaysia, Hong Kong (where we also have an office) to Singapore.Out of the ashes of misfortune arose opportunity. Needless to say, I am very excited to be joining this young
and dynamic team!